Riot Games revealed a new event.
The World Star The Demacia Cup Goes Global by Inviting Everyone Who Missed WorldsChallengers Invitational will run from 20 September to 2 October, sixteen teams, in partnership with TJ Sports.
EMEA Masters Summer will run 21 September to 23 October.
There is an overlap almost entirely, and EMEA's three representatives are presumably coming from the same pool of teams. Riot hasn't explained how that resolves.
Sixteen teams will be drawn from three seeding pools into four groups. Group stage will run 20 to 25 September as a double round-robin of best-of-ones, 48 matches will span across six days. Top two from each group reach a single-elimination bracket of best-of-fives.
Five regions will send three teams each: China, Korea, APAC, Americas and EMEA. Qualification pathways differ by region and Riot hasn't detailed them. DK Challengers will complete the field as Asia Masters champions.
Who's confirmed
CBLOL has already announced Vivo Keyd Stars Academy as Brazil's representative.
Solary and Galions from the LFL, Bilibili Gaming Junior, EDward Gaming Youth Team and ZSK from the LDL, and Dplus Kia Challengers from LCK CL.
Nine slots remain undecided still.
What it's for
So this event expands Asia Star Challengers Invitational, a 12-team event Riot ran in September 2024, into something global.
Riot calls it a pilot program to work out how cross-regional Tier 2 competition can support player development, and says exposure matters as much as results here.
Tier 2 players who impress gets promoted. Tier 2 organisations rarely go anywhere, and many have been folding or losing operators, as the LFL, NLC, Prime League and Superliga shows this year.
Two new tournaments, one week
The Demacia Cup Global Invitational was announced days ago as well , also run by TJ Sports, also for teams that missed Worlds, running 3 to 17 October.
TJ Sports now operates the LPL, Asia Masters, the Demacia Cup Global Invitational and the WSCI. That's a substantial amount of Riot's international calendar under one Chinese organiser.
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